and shining as a mirror. It was too early yet for the tide of travel
which sends a score of boats up and down this thoroughfare every day;
and from shore to shore the water was unruffled, except by a flock
of sheldrakes which had been feeding near Plymouth Rock, and now
went skittering off into Weller Bay with a motion between flying and
swimming, leaving a long wake of foam behind them.

At such a time as this you can see the real colour of these Adirondack
lakes. It is not blue, as romantic writers so often describe it, nor
green, like some of those wonderful Swiss lakes; although of course
it reflects the colour of the trees along the shore; and when the wind
stirs it, it gives back the hue of the sky, blue when it is clear, gray
when the clouds are gathering, and sometimes as black as ink under the
shadow of storm. But when it is still, the water itself is like that
river which one of the poets has described as

"Flowing with a smooth brown current."

And in this sheet of burnished bronze the mountains and islands were
reflected perfectly, and the sun shone back from it, not in broken
gleams or a wide lane of light, but like a single ball of fire, moving
before us as we moved.

But stop! What is that dark speck on the water, away down toward Turtle
Point? It has just the shape and size of a deer's head. It seems to
move steadily out into the lake. There is a little ripple, like a wake,
behind it. Hose turns to look at it, and then sends the boat darting
in that direction with long, swift strokes. It is a moment of pleasant
excitement, and we begin to conjecture whether the deer is a buck or
a doe, and whose hounds have driven it in. But when Hose turns to look